Photos: Donkey Kong champions battled for top honors at the Kong Off II

As we promised in our recent cover story, it was on like Donkey Kong at the 1UP in LoDo this weekend. More than three decades after the beloved arcade game brought barrels into the mainstream, twelve of the world's top players duked it out against high-scoring wildcard gamers at Denver's own video game hub across three days. Spectators -- of which there were hundreds -- witnessed action-packed hours of gameplay from names including The King of Kong's Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell (above) and current world-record-crusher Hank Chien. But it was another Kong enthusiast who was eventually crowned king last night: twenty-year-old Canadian Jeff Willms, who had not played the game on an arcade cabinet until the competition -- his first arcade event ever. Oh, Canada!

Continue reading for more photos from over the weekend, and then revisit our cover story, "Let the Games Begin."